The screens showed confused pictures of the surroundings, not all the cameras and screens now focusing on the still continuing GasClipper race. One camera seemed to be following a slim, finned craft, the one which had attacked Hatherence, as it circled the Blimper.
Other screens showed ships, dozens of dark ships, dropping from the sky.
They were gas-capable Mercatoria spacecraft, some as little as fifty metres long, others three or four times that size; soot-black ellipsoids with thick wings and sleek but rudimentary tailplanes and engine pods. They were diving towards the Blimper fleet, two or three peeling off every vertical klick or so to circle, guarding. Much higher above — another snatched camera angle, drifting out of focus then snapping clear more slick shapes gyrated above the high haze layer, like scavengers over carrion.
Another screen’s view spun, then settled, jerking, on the spec-tating fleet’s accompanying Dreadnought, the Puisiel, whose turrets were swinging, gun barrels elevating. A yellow white beam flicked on and off, boring straight through the war craft, making it shudder and sending shock waves running along its outer fabric. The beam hit the Storm Wall beyond at almost the same time, raising a dark puff of vapour like a bruise, quickly whipped away. The GasClippers seemed to have disappeared. “What in all the gods’ farts is going on?” Valseir asked. They had come to a stop, transfixed by the screens like most of the rest of the people in the concourse.
The Puisiel’s turrets and guns continued to swing round for a moment, then came to rest, seemingly pointing in random directions.
“Oh, don’t,” Fassin said.
The Dreadnought’s guns flashed, gouting fire and smoke. Smaller shapes dropped away from it at the same time, half obscured by the wreathing broadside smoke clouds, and then pulsed fire and smoke from their rears and started curving up and out towards the dropping spacecraft. Screens blinked. The dark, descending spacecraft glittered with light. Midway between the Puisiel and the scatter of black ships, piercing white lines ended in sudden detonations, filling the gas above and around the spectating fleet with black bursts of smoke.
A screen swung to show one turning spacecraft dropping, trailing smoke. Dwellers started yelling. Trays, food, drugs and pet-children were sent flying, carapace skins blazed naked signals of excitement and fury and whiffs of war-lust filled the air as though a series of tiny scent-grenades had gone off along the concourse. A black dot trailing a haze of exhaust sailed in towards the crippled spacecraft but was picked off from above in a blast of light. Then something still smaller and faster darted across the screen and hit the ship, detonating inside and tearing it entirely in half; the two torn sections flew down towards the Depths, dangled on elongating strings of smoke. The other missiles were picked off even more easily, swatted like slow insects.
Fassin started pulling Valseir away. Dwellers all around them howled and barked at the screens and started taking bets. Distant concussive thumps and longer roars sounded throughout the concourse, bringing the long-delayed battle sounds to accompany the near-instant visuals.
Dark glitterings, everywhere. The Dreadnought lit up all along its length, speckled with fire. The beams lanced it, plunging on into the Storm Wall, freckling bruises across the stir of dark gas. About a third of a last broadside, most of it aimed at where the fallen spaceship had been, punched out from the Puisiel a fraction of a second before the first beams hit. The great vessel shook like a leaf in a storm, then started to drop even as further rays riddled it. A final beam, less bright, much broader, punched through the whole central section, folding the craft about its middle and sending it flowing and spiralling downwards. A few tiny double discs drifted away from the stricken war craft and roted away or just fell, some trailing smoke. Some were hit by further beams of light, vanishing in miniature explosions.
“Valseir, move,” Fassin whispered in the sudden silence. “We have to get away. Just get to the outside.” They were almost level with a 45° up-access tube. Fassin nudged Valseir towards it. “This way.” He didn’t even know if they really should get away. Maybe they were still somehow safer here in the Blimper. At least closer to the outside they might have more choice.
Valseir allowed himself to be pushed towards the slope of the access tube. The lowest part of the fleet of dark ships was now almost level with the top of the spectating fleet. Howls started to fill the concourse. Fassin and Valseir were being held back from the tube entrance by a stream of Dwellers coming in the other direction.
Fassin continued to push the old Dweller, though they both kept looking back at the screens. One of the dark ships circled gradually closer to the Storm Wall. Near its closest approach, a GasClipper came hurtling out of the dark curtain of whirling gas, blade sails extended like a frozen gleaming explosion. It rammed the dark warship amidships, hammering into it and pushing the two craft across the sky in a single tangled flailing mass. Still locked in their terrible embrace, the two craft started to fall away with everything else, heading for the foot of the storm’s great dark well and the hot crush of gas beneath.
More screams and barks of joy echoed round the concourse.
Another camera, another screen: a section of the StormWall was bulging, dark gas streaming around some huge rounded cone forcing its way through the storm as though it wasn’t there.
A huge Dreadnought flowed out of the storm, trailing streamers of gas like vast banners. Shrieks of encouragement and great, air-quaking cheers resounded down the wide tunnel of the concourse, making it resonate like a vast organ pipe. The new Dreadnought silvered in an instant, white beams scattering off it as it flew into the clear gas heart of the storm’s colossal eye.
“Fuck me,” Fassin heard himself say. “They were waiting for them.”
The silver Dreadnought powered straight towards the fleet of dark ships, which, after starting to close in on the spectating fleet, were now swinging and swivelling to reconfigure and face the new threat.
The Dreadnought raced forward, fire bright around its propellerless tail, guns firing and flashing. Its silvery skin, reflecting sky, storm and dark depths, sparkled with jagged scintillations, bouncing beams off in random directions like bright thrown spines. Two more of the dark ships detonated and fell, sending the Dweller screams in the concourse — and the bets -towards even wilder heights.
The Dreadnought tore onwards, shaking under the weight of fire falling upon it. A missile from the fleet of Mercatoria ships slashed across the view, was missed by a fan of interceptor fire from the Dreadnought and slammed into it.
There was just the hint of the start of an explosion, bursting the Dreadnought apart as though tearing open the wrapping round a piece of star, then the screen went utterly white before hazing out completely, blank. Lights in the concourse flickered and went out, came back, then faded again. The warbling sound, there but effectively unheard all this time, cut off, its absence in the sudden silence like a hearing loss. The Dzunda quivered like a struck animal.
Other screens wavered, went black, filled with static. Some screens, now providing the only light in the concourse, remained working. Gradually more light filled the long tube, as low emergency lighting strobed on, caught and held.
A low muttering sound of Dweller trepidation and resentment started to build. One camera swung to show the huge rolling mushroom cloud filling the space where the Dreadnought had been. A few tiny pieces of wreckage fell, far away, thin claws from a tumorously bloated fist. The dark ships started to close in again on the spectator fleet, currently composed of vessels commanded by two sorts of captains: those who thought it best to clump together and those who regarded scattering and even taking their chances with the storm winds as the safer bet.